Left I on the News

A leftwing view of the day's news and the way it's presented in the media

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Israeli lobby

A few posts below this one I took Deborah Lipstadt to task for saying "Carter has repeatedly fallen back -- possibly unconsciously [Ed. note: how generous of her! "Possibly!"] -- on traditional anti-Semitic canards," because Carter dared to discuss the power of the Israeli lobby. Well, let's see. This week Israel has been holding a conference on national security; here's what Benjamin Netanyahu had to say:

Rallying the international community to isolate Iran should be the “main mission” of Israel, said Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu. The former prime minister said Israel must trigger a "wave for delegitmizing" the regime by putting the Iranian president on trial for incitement to genocide, and through voluntary economic sanctions like divesture.

Just coincidence that Iran has suddenly, almost out of nowhere, become Public Enemy #1 in the U.S.? Hardly. Who else was at this conference? "A cadre of American experts, officials and politicians," including "U.S. presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, John Edwards and John McCain, along with Newt Gingrich" who "seemingly compet[ed] to see who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish state."

Edwards, who is busy portraying himself as something of an "antiwar" candidate back home, was anything but when speaking in Israel:

"Iran is serious about its threats," former US Senator John Edwards has told an audience in Israel.

In his speech, Edwards criticised the United States' previous indifference to the Iranian issue, saying they have not done enough to deal with the threat.

Hinting to possible military action, Edwards stressed that "in order to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons, all options must remain on table."

On the recent UN Security Council's resolution against Iran, Edwards said more serious political and economic steps should be taken. "Iran must know that the world won’t back down," he said.

Edwards must have also been functioning as the stand-up comedian at the conference, judging by this knee-slapper:

US Senator John Edwards praised Israel’s willingness to compromise for the sake of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.